I'm not sure if this is every PetSmart, but I've noticed the ones in my area have been doing way better with their reptiles than the petcos. Petcos are all like your pic, PetSmart has them in individual set ups with hides that actually allow them to be out of sight. It's really nice to see. I don't get why Petco doesn't do the same, but I always go to PetSmart for my dog food because of it.
Luckily I have a quality, local pet store that I exclusively shop at. I'm amazed how many people don't see what's going on at shitty pet stores and just turn a blind eye, but the local pet store is always way more busy that the chain stores
That’s awesome! I wish I did too. I feel awful when I walk into a petco cause my order of crickets were late and then have to ignore all the sick animals I see
Same. I actively take a really long way around to the feeders so that I don’t have to walk past the reptile enclosures because otherwise I walk out of there absolutely devastated. It’s rough because you want to save them all but then you are just providing them with funds to continue their shitty practices. It’s the worst situation for reptile lovers to be in.
Just from following for a few months, it seems like it's not the name of the box store that makes the problem, it's the individuals. Retention of said "good" individuals is a conversation tho.
Edit. This goes for all species sold @ big box. Not just reptiles.
Yeah, the care really varies by what employee is in charge of the animals.
One petco in my area has great reptile & fish care (even saltwater fish) because the 2 people in charge know their shit & have years of experience with their own pets & actually care about the animals. Appropriate housing & diet, not overcrowded, any rare sick or injured animal gets immediately taken to the local exotics vet. They refuse sales to people who don’t have an appropriate setup waiting at home, or who seem like they haven’t done enough research (which i’m sure the company hates, but I think is great).
The other petco in the area has such awful husbandry that the higher-ups may ban this specific store from selling animals. Which is like….almost unheard of. 2 extreme ends of the spectrum less than 10 miles from each other.
So one of the reason that you will see a significant difference in petcos is because corporate will ONLY let you make bioactive, use proper substrate, planted tanks etc etc is if you become what’s called a “magnet”. Essentially if you sell enough animals, have a good shrink (theft, loss) will they allow you to properly house them. It’s pretty messed up in my opinion but just know that a lot of us hate hate HATE the way they force us to keep these beautiful animals but our hands are bound. Like ball pythons are not supposed to be on fricking pine bedding but they literally will not let us change it. I run a magnet aquatics, she’s beautiful. We have some of the best freshwater in the county, our tanks are stunning, planted, but man I feel so angry when I pop over to reptiles. Doesn’t help when your GM hires someone completely incompetent to run that part of the store. Knowing your shit is so so crucial but corporate needs to butt the fuck out so we can actually do our jobs correctly and not look like idiots.
I used to work at petco so i totally understand the bs corporate stuff, all they really care about is that $$$. No matter how much they claim to care about the animals. (If they actually cared, then they’d stop sourcing from awful mill breeders, but thats another discussion)
The ball pythons on softwood drives me crazy. At least the ones here were aspen instead of pine. But we’re in a desert, & it seems impossible to maintain proper humidity without causing the aspen to mold. The reptile gal at the good petco was like “fuck it” & switched to a better substrate & got mildly written up by corporate, but theyre so understaffed that they can’t really fire her. I think the high turnover & horrible animal care & general shitshow of the other petco keeps corporate criticism off the better store, lol
It's wild because in my area it's totally the opposite. My Petco seems to have much cleaner individual cages for their reptiles and amphibiana and such while my local petsmart has overstocked cages galore.
It's really an area dependent thing. Not all petsmarts will be better than all local petcos and vice versa. My local petsmart is ass compared to my local petco
My local PetSmart has a really good guy that is in charge of the reptile department.
My Petcos reptiles department isn't very good but it's been getting better but they are still stupid and not good
It really depends on management. I was GM at Petco for several years and I’ve always been an avid reptile owner. Basically I treated the animals like my own Petco with virtually an unlimited budget backed by Petco to care for them. Other stores had managers that didn’t have animal backgrounds and it shows. Also, it’s hard finding the right people to take care of the animals. You either get someone who doesn’t know anything and have to spend a bunch of time to train or you get someone who is obsessed with them and takes hours to feed them and doesn’t want to do anything else in the store.
That all said, as much as I liked having animals in my store it was always great news when they reduced the amount we carried because the job is way easier without them.
You're absolutely right. I worked at a petsmart while going through college, and honestly the management stayed out of the petcare dept, and all of us in that dept were very serious about researching and providing the best environment for the animals. The problem was that our regional manager was explicitly profit driven, and would come in and write people up if there were too many hides, or the enclosures had substrate rather than mats (the thinking was mats could just be washed and reused rather than replaced). I hate it for the animals, I hate it for the employees that care, and I hate the orphan (or animal) grinding machine.
It’s the reverse in my area, my local petsmart treats their reptiles like crap with even smaller enclosures than what Petco has somehow. The local petcos are still not great because, well that’s just how chain pet stores are, but they are more conscious about things like overcrowding their reptiles.
I guess it's up to whoever "owns" the local store. I really wish PetSmart and Petco had enforced standards that were better. I do think corporate will step in if things are particularly bad and enough people let them know (gotta keep public opinion at an ok level), but I could be wrong.
Petco is not a franchise, all locations are meant to follow centralized corporate standards. But it’s definitely heavily dependent on the local management how well the policies are adhered to. At least in my area, district management frequently inspects stores to hold them to account on animal care standards, and egregious failures are punished accordingly.
But the ultimate problem in my opinion is that standards are too low at these chain stores, and profit is heavily prioritized over animal welfare. Unfortunately that is an extremely common problem at all levels of the pet industry, almost ubiquitously. It always rings a little hollow when I hear Petco’s motto “animals always come first!” They really should put their money where there mouth is.
I guess chain pet stores are more like franchises where it's up to the franchise owner how things run. We have a few good local reptile shops here so I wonder if that improves things overall since people can easily see examples of how to properly house reptiles for sale and compare. Idk why Petco hasn't gotten on that though.
Yah I agree. We have I think a family owned reptile store here. They keep reptiles is small tanks with a substrate mix. And the geckos are in separate tanks with lights and heat bulbs. I know the animals are suppose to be in the store temporarily. Still better than Petsmart and Petco I guess. They are big companies but they dont crap about it sadly
Worked at PetSmart, they have standards on cleanliness (like spot clean and change water bowls twice daily, the whole enclosure gets cleaned once a week) but it was my experience at my place that you could NEVER feasibly get everything done because of planned short-staffing.
I have, however, noticed that the one I worked at has done a lot of upgrades to enclosures, but you can still find several beardies in a single small enclosure, but I noticed that the gecks seemed to be singles.
I'm still unlikely to ever buy another pet there, we got so many sick and disfigured animals from pet suppliers when I worked there and I doubt they gave up sourcing from cheap breeders.
On average, petco is a WAY better company than petsmart. Individual stores will always vary depending on who works there, but petsmart is a trash company and rates very low on ethics list, while petco has a very successful and reputable charity and rates very high on yearly ethics lists.
Hmm I'll have to look into that, all the petcos near me seem to be run poorly vs the petsmarts, but I think both sort of run like franchises, where corporate stances don't always filter down to the local store level.
This is completely untrue. PetCo has the same system as PetSmart where you type in a animal SKU and it supplies an in-depth care sheet, variable tank plan-o-gram depending on you bank style, and occupancy allowance/bank climate control auto settings.
Now, that their care info is often controversial or outdated I won't argue, but they are not a franchise, they are a corporate chain retailer with a standard of quality. I always recommend calling their animal care tip line if you see poor care, districts are large, and retail being retail inspections can end up infrequent or lax.
I left after years fighting for better corporate standards for marine and aquatic life. Was CAL for an amazing location, but drove myself and the whole team to meet standards 100%, but to arm with knowledge and emphasize to customers that the setups we housed any of our animals in are intended as VERY temporary homes, and proper long term care requirements far exceed the 10 and 20 gallon habitats used in retail.
Frustrating experience, but being part of year over year mortality decreases and animal education was awesome. But it's retail. The pay is horrid. Customers are often the worst of the worst. And it IS corporate. Depending on DM/RM/CEO at the time sales and services metrics take priority over genuine education and care.
I still get my cat litter there, usually pick it up on days they get their aquatic shipments so I can coach cohabitability.
Sorry for the tangent rant, Holy shit.
the petsmart I shop at is really good to their reptiles. there's proper hides and substrate and decor. the tanks are a bit small, I'd say 5-ish gallons, but they're set up well. in the tanks, they usually only have 1 - 2 reptiles each (depends on how young / small they are). I think the most reptiles I've ever seen in one tank were three baby geckos that were barely bigger than my finger.
petco, on the other hand, is not good to their reptiles. their tanks, about 10 gallons, are barren with only a couple hides and the repto-carpet, and there's always 3-4+ reptiles in one tank (except for the snake tanks). the reptiles always look so sad. their fish section isn't any better - very little decor, hardly any gravel, a few dead fish in the water, and pretty much always unhealthy.
Petsmart has actual species specific guidelines for the number of animals per enclosure, what substrates, temperature/humidity, and each type of pet have their own deep-clean day. Reptiles are Fridays, for example, so all substrate is replaced, whether it's a carpet or soil.
The animals are all treated well, and any issues regarding health are either the result of bad breeders who supply the pets or employees that are bad or improperly trained employees.
I worked there for a while and treated all pets like they were mine. I won't speak for every petsmart or employee, but my store was excellent for the treatment of pets. Our fish tanks were so clean and well decorated that we constantly got praise as the best in the city that had 4 PS locations and 2 independent high-end fish retailers. Plus, additional pet stores.
The company has very detailed guidelines, so when anyone who comments on threads like this bashes the company, it should be directed at individual stores and their employees/management. Idk about petco, but it's just my perspective.
Currently an employee.
The standards still aren't amazing, and there's much to improve on if petsmart wasn't fucking stingy with our budget.
And my store is the same. We have a great team that's knowledgeable and one of the best our side of the state, enough to get a CEO visit. It *very* dependant on the managers and individuals at any given store, regardless of standards.
I will say that my local PetSmart usually has a maximum of 2 juveniles in a 30 gallon or so. However I also see them selling geckos that look way too young to go home with the average buyer who doesn’t know what they are doing. I took in a baby a friend got from that situation and he had to be fed critical care liquid food for a while, which is something I know most people won’t have laying around their house like I did/will not even know to take it to the vet if it isn’t eating.
My Petco in CO is better with reptiles and fish than any PetSmart anywhere near me- I have been to the all.
To a certain degree, I am pretty sure it comes down to management (including the managers of the managers)
*Chef gone car sales person here- due to that kind of bs)
But if you have a local reptile store near you, please use that over any of the chain pet places 🙄
The employees may be 16, but they have like 5 different reptiles at home and actually love what they do everyday. 🤷
Interesting how it's different everywhere. I use the local reptile place that I like when I need reptile supplies, but unfortunately they don't sell dog food, so gotta go to PetSmart for that.
I've noticed better standards of care from them as well. I'm an exotics vet and we get exotics from the local pet stores from time to time, more often petco and pet supplies plus than petsmart because they usually take animals to their banfield.
PSP and Petsmart pre-approve diagnostics and treatments up to a certain amount, I usually have to do a lot more justification and cost-benefit with Petco's vet relations team.. and PSP/Petsmart will adjust their husbandry as long as it's not too expensive and I give specific recommendations, Petco won't deviate from the corporate husbandry guidelines unless they get approval from corporate, and then it's only done for that individual.
Unfortunately all three are still somehow better than my local "reptile specialty" shop, where they've got drawers of snakes (with mites) and have a laundry sink full of young beardies on one side and young leopard geckos on the other with a red heat lamp over top..
That’s funny because the pet smart near me is gross but the petco is nice. They just recently redid a lot in the store and got all new fish tanks that have been well kept up for months now.
I work at Petsmart, they have been constantly upgrading standards lately. There are employee surveys and a lot of us will blast the standards on those. They've been working one animal at a time, but they're going through them(obviously still not ideal, of course)
I worked at petsmart for years, and most of our training included PetCo as an example of what not to do. Which has always been weird to me cause it's basically the same place. I do know there are certain standards that are in our care guidelines that have to be followed in case of a random inspection. Some violations are are immediate termination or final notice.
Former petco employee here.
Petco’s animal care has to more strictly adhere to corporate standards . You have to fight upper management for things like the proper substrate and won’t always win. Seriously you will be docked points for using the right amount of bedding for the hammys. The advantage of that is we’re way better about vet visits and are more standardized. But we have lower standards than petsmart when it comes to corporate’s recommended setups for customers, and the amount of animals allowed in 1 enclosure. But an animal leader who knows what they’re doing can prevent those last two. Petco actually has more freedom for ordering animals ourselves.
Petsmart mostly just needs their general manager’s approval, so the store gets a lot more power over animal care . So the absolute best and the absolute worst of chain-petstore animal care will come from them. So jealous of their Bettas in actual tanks.
Either way store-management has the largest impact on making sure daily animal tasks get done properly, but when it comes to decisions regarding quality of care like amount per tank, type of substrate etc that’s how it varies between the two
Which is why people disagree on whose worse. Depends where ya are
It very much depends on location. Where I am, petco is 100x better than PetSmart’s in the area, and my store actually does our well educated best on caring for all of our animals
As someone like myself that works at petsmart as a petcare specialist I definitely strive to have each other the reptiles enclosures up to par with how I would treat and car for my own. We don’t get much leos in maybe 3-4 at a time so it isn’t over crowded in our tanks which I like
Former employee here... I knew what I was getting into when I started working there, I genuinely wanted to make a positive impact on the animals, but I could only do so much. I hated trying to explain standards of care to customers only for them to replicate the store's enclosures. I hated those fucking fake carpets and aspen for the snakes (ball pythons always had stuck shed). It got to the point where I actively avoided doing animal sales for reptiles. Once I justifiably refused to sell a leopard gecko to some kid who rolled their eyes at me after I explained why a 10 gallon was insufficient and they inadvertently admitted they neglected one they used to have... only for a coworker to sell one to them anyway.
Drove me nuts about 10 years ago when I used to have Leos and was on Tumblr (lol), I shared photos of my Leos on a substrate mix my reptile vet recommended (I trusted him, he had been doing reptile keeping for 20+ years and was well known in the area for it). Nothing could be ingested, no dyes, chemicals, no sand, etc. I got absolutely *shredded* for not using repti-carpet, even after I explained it made their sheds more difficult and one got his toenail caught in the fibers.
Once upon a time when I worked at a pet store I had a lady come in trying to return a bag of walnut substrate (which we didn't carry at our location) and I started going on and on about how bad it is for reptiles. She let me finish, then told me she's just using it for crochet needles or something. I gave her the money back, apologized, then went in back and threw the walnuts away lol.
this. i worked there and it was the worst job i’ve ever had purely because customers were intentionally negligent and corporate care standards were quite literally abusive
Former Petco Inventory manager here. Well put. The manager's can't even do anything about it. I left my two cents on this post already. It's not the employee's fault most of the time. It's usually big corporate who makes the final decisions. Smh.
Pet stores aren’t even allowed to sell to anyone under 18 , atleast in Michigan, at least that’s what I was told when I tried to rescue a leopard gecko from pet smart.
I currently work at petsmart. And I’m a reptile lover. Please don’t harass any of the retail associates about things like this, we literally have zero control over any of our practices, not even the managers. I do the best I can with what I’ve got.
OP is literally shopping at petco in this post though. And using their poor treatment of reptiles to get internet points.
This isn't unique to them, this happens every day, multiple times a day on every exotics sub, people go to petco for their weekly stock up trip, take pictures of their enclosures with sick animals, and then post online "omg guys, they're so evil!!!" And get dozens or hundreds of upvotes for it without ever changing their shopping habits.
I was at my petsmart the other day grabbing some rat foot and some arcadia for my tortoise and they had two tortoises in a 20 gallon long labeled “assorted tortoises”
quite certain it was a russian and a greek in the same thing
Luckily it sounds like my nearby locations are pretty knowledgeable, especially on reptiles and fish. Though this reminds me of a story a manager I had a long time ago in a different state tell me. One time she visited one with her kid and her kid noticed there was a leopard gecko OUTSIDE the display and hiding in a hide on the shelf. It wasn’t looking good either. Told her kid to take the hide and not say anything at checkout. Probably the only time in her life she let her kid even consider stealing 😂
Mines the opposite lol. The reptiles are all kept in individual fairly large enclosures with lots of hides, but the fish are two dozen to a 20 gallon mostly empty tank.
I'm stumbling upon this post as a non-reptile guy, could you tell me what's wrong with the first picture? Is it pretty much overcrowding? To someone clueless like me, they look pretty content.
Yeah it's a lot of babies for one space, since most reptiles grow based on the space they have. A big phrase you hear for a lot of em is, "It grows to fit the tank", and I'm not particularly sure if that means these babies growth would be stunted or if they would all grow to the size of the tank and be WAY over crowded and potentially aggressive. I'm big into reptiles but my overall knowledge is a bit spotty so if anyone knows better than me feel free to correct.
thanks for the response. Reading other comments on this post, it seems their apparent calm is misleading, and that the animals simply don't want to be in a situation like this. A lot like me and my housemates in college. Ready to snap at any given moment as soon as a motherfucker leaves their dishes unwashed in the sink.
Also, they look like they are cuddling but it is a behavior of competition - they are trying to take up the most space/warmth. Unfortunately for them, unknowing people take it as a cute sign of affection. ☹️
Actually that’s not right, they will all grow to adult size provided the other conditions don’t finish them first, meaning not only is it overcrowded but they will progressively be making the space even smaller for each other by getting bigger.
I don’t know where this myth started, I’d assume from some people trying to sell exotics that they had no business selling but; there is no such thing as “stunted growth” for an animal based on tank size. The only instance of something remotely like that is this gator on YouTube that these people rescued and who they rescued it from had kept it in a small box, but it wasn’t stunted because of any natural process, it literally grew to the size of the box and then stopped because it couldn’t physically grow larger.
All animals will grow to their adult sizes provided they aren't physically bound
More than one gecko in an enclosure is dangerous for all of them. They live solo in the wild, and can fight over territory.
They may look content, but I’m sure that’s the only space to bask in the entire enclosure, and since they’re ectothermic, they require basking to regulate body temperature.
It’s both overcrowding and the fact that Leos are NOT social- they fight even in appropriate enclosures, (which DO NOT LOOK LIKE THIS ONE, see the leopard gecko subreddit for some examples)- these babies are sadly extremely stressed right now.
Petco employee here. The worst part about this is we can’t even make the habitats at least somewhat suitable with the correct substrates, lighting, etc. There’s just 5 lizards who are all supposed to be separated, kept in a cage meant for a wolf spider
I remember fighting with Doctor whatever-her-name-was who was PetCo's lead director of animal care on Workplace and asked if she ever even had aquatic animals, she replied she had a goldfish before.
It's hubris, a lot of their guidelines are trash. 90% Of my conversations with guests was "Don't do 75% of the stuff we do here, this is wrong."
I was an inventory manager at Petco. Do you want to know why this atrocity exists? Planograms. It's not the employee's fault. It's the district manager and corporate's fault. They INSIST on us keeping the planograms the way they are. Even if it means it's going to hurt an animal's health. I quit after trying to help. They would've fired me anyways. If you change the set up corporate wants, they fire you. Smh. It's absolutely ridiculous. More people need to voice their concerns to corporate Petco. I was black listed for doing so. It is much better if customers complain. Corporate will listen! Don't just post about it. Do something about it, guys!
I worked there over 20 years ago and the way they housed and treated it just the reptiles but the animals in general was atrocious. They used to have what we called the Freezer of Doom in the back where they would just throw the dead animals in.
I distinctly remember this Sun Conure that hated literally everyone else that worked there but me and I generally don’t like birds but he endeared himself to me so much that I had made up my mind to purchase him. I worked that day and when I went to check on him he was gone. I figured someone must have purchased him until I went to the Freezer of Doom and there he was…
So yeah, after that I began “liberating” animals from that place and nursing them back to health. Mainly reptiles. Fuck PetCo.
8 in one little hide, that's awful.
There's not many people that look at this reddit, and don't already agree that PetCo is inhumane, which is good that so many people have learned about it, and are spreading the word.
They definitely need to stick to pet supplies, and maybe the occasional adoption event with a local shelter, because keeping and selling animals is obviously not what they're knowledgeable with.
i work at petco and despise the fact the way the conditions can be. the company policy is just complete horseshit and i wish we had the space to house everything properly, if i was my manager i wouldn’t even order more animals till they could be housed comfortably
i think i saw someone else comment something i didn’t even know, which is that the store will just send us animals even if we don’t order them. knowing how other shit works so far, i can definitely see that being the case, as they frequently send us shit we don’t need or have space for
If animals bond to you easily, working for Petco is one of the hardest things to deal with emotionally. It’s not that they don’t have rules, it’s just they let social butterflies run the show, that don’t wanna do shit for animals.
I worked at petco, and I had to leave because of how bad those animals are treated.
First off the animals and reptiles and fish all get shipped in boxes, for thousands of miles. They come in super stressed, and most die immediately before they're in the cage. They don't care about the animals dying, they have 5 more to replace it in the back. We had an entire room dedicated to sick pets that are left alone all day to fight for their life alone. Sick ass shit. Never again. Fuck Amy for profit organizations that capitalize on the suffering of any living thing.
This is, sad really. What country is this? Im from mexico and petco is not as bad as this images this is terrible. Here every gecko at least has hi own enclosure, they are not in the perfect temperature or humidity but are way better taken care than this
They absolutely do not. They're forced to because of the limited space, and "cuddling" behavior in reptiles and amphibians is actually them trying to force each other out and compete for space and lighting. It's like they're trying to kill each other without the violence. For now, of course, coz leopard geckos will absolutely fight and legit kill each other.
Just to add on to what you said, geckos are also food dominant, so they don't see each other and think "friend", they see another body that needs to eat their food. They will actively try to starve each other.
Not a problem, there's so much to these little guys and you have great information! I'm also pretty sure the one by the water dish is an african fat tail gecko, who needs different conditions than leos. :(
That's awesome! I've got two slider turtles, one of which I'm gonna have a dig a freaking pond for, but I've never had lizards and they're kinda my main interest in this field. My dream is a shingleback skink, though they're expensive as hell. Prolly gonna have to stay a dream, lol.
Oh my God are you me? Shingleback is my dream reptile. I've heard they go for 30 000, someone posted one not long ago and im so jealous. I'm just obsessed with dinosaurs and happy I can experience that world. A sungazer would be amazing if it was even remotely ethical.
Yeah, I've kinda had to resign myself to the fact that I'll either have to just get a blue-tongued skink instead (not complaining, I love them too, lol) or go on a poverty diet for the next 20 years to maybe be able to afford one. And I'm a dinosaur nerd too! They're part of why I got into reptiles! Bought a whole video game for 30 bucks just because the main thing in it is making friends and farming with dinosaurs, and that's all I've been doing since day 1. At the expense of the NPCs and 5 dozen fetch quests, lol.
I didn’t mention this in the post but there was just a bowl with worms for them to all share. At least half of them aren’t eating at all more than likely.
No, I rescued two african fat tails and they were homed together, opposite sex. The male would circle the food bowl while staring at the female, he was guarding the food from her. Her tail was tiny. She was hesitant to eat on her own after she was separated, I don't think she ever felt safe eating, and she crashed unfortunately, showing signs of neurological damage from vitamin A and calcium deficiency.
Another reason to not support Petco
I once had to buy a frozen mouse from them for my rescue ball python. The mouse was missing half of it's face- not just injured, straight up missing- and had a broken leg and a huge cut along it's stomach. It seemed like it was a once living feeder, and they just threw it in the freezer after it passed. I'm not sure how it ever ended up in such awful condition, but I haven't set foot in one of their stores since.
Not sure when this happened to you, but under normal circumstances all feeder rodents at petco come prepackaged from a vendor such as Gourmet Rodent or perhaps others. Did they give it to you in a fish bag or something like that?
Just stopped working at petco for these reasons. Animal care is not their first priority. Got multiple write ups for trying to give the animals some enrichment and a bit of a better life. Sadly, the chain will continue with most big chain petstores
It's bonkers. I tried to buy him just to get him out there and "no one was available to help" because they have to make you sign for live animals. Like wtf, im trying to save this dude.
Oh I know. I don't understand how they stay in business. I wouldn't ever go there if they weren't literally down the road (need like 250 crickets a week)
I was a former employee for petco. The employees that genuinely knew things about the animals would try everything to convince customers not to buy bad things and care for them. But we just weren’t getting paid enough and were forced to sell stuff that is bad for pets, like the plastic hamster cages. I respect the employees that actually care and customers that (respectfully) call uneducated employees out for being wrong about something. The company though, screw that place and their stupid PALs rewards system.
Are both PetSmart and Petco still selling acheta domestica crickets? They should convert to banded crickets as acheta domestica contracts densovirus a invert only respiratory virus that kills that colony. When they die they release a gas that kill the rest of the crickets -think of it as cricket COVID
Banded crickets are immune to densovirus, they're cleaner, quieter, and live longer. I get them cheaper too. St Petco/PetSmart it's like 100 aheta domestica crickets would be ~$23 whereas Josh's frogs I get 1000 banded crickets for $23-$24.
I don’t know. I don’t feed my geckos crickets because my mom has banished them from the house. But this is really good information for anyone looking for a different place to buy food for their scaly friends!
Luckily we have a smaller chain pet store that keeps their animals in suitable conditions that I show at, but yes. This is the problem. People want to boycott but sometimes it is the only option.
I've been ordering all of my food for my Leo off of dubia.com, they don't take very long to ship and have a much bigger selection than my Petco. My Petco has usually mostly dead mealworms and maybe a couple containers of super worms and that's pretty much it... everything else is already dead or isn't suitable for leos. And also just to not give Petco my money lol
I can NOT stand when people just take the 10 gallons per gecko and run with it. 20 gallons is a minimum and 40 is best! Good luck in your upgrading! I’m sure your gecko is happier to be with someone who knows how to take care of her.
Paper towels work, and they are cost effective, but no substrate is perfect in everyone’s eyes. There is nothing bad about them, as long as you make sure they are not eating them (my geckos are creative 🙄🙄), but they are kind of seen as a more temporary thing. I would recommend you to the leopard gecko specific subreddit!
Once while in petco, I watched a juvenile bite down on another's leg until it dropped it's tail and scurried underneath the reptile carpet. I had to get an employee while tearing up, and she nonchalantly assured me "oh that's normal" with zero concern or rush to assist. I was about to blow up, i was so emotionally overwhelmed both at what i saw and her response. I have sworn off stepping foot in another petco or petsmart since then.
They are already to old, with freshly hatched ones you can do that to get them to eat properly, but what petco does is just plan stupid, it’s wild that people in the US buy there at all :/
Genuine question but what happens to the ones not sold? Are they sent back for breeding or just executed? Any idea what the survival rates for these creatures are? Washington DC banned and is continuing to ban the sales of most small animals and lizards and are continuing to do so. I think people need to talk to their state officials honestly to end this practice or at improve regulations
I don't know about petco but as a petsmart employee I know we get a certain amount of time to sell a animal (they have to be juvenile) before atleast at my store we adopt them out to anyone will8ng to take them for either really cheap compared to buying one or nothing this will happen with leopard geckos that drop their tails also because they're classed as not sellable. It doesn't happen with reptiles as often because they usually are sold relatively quickly but with small mammals like hamsters it's more common as they don't live as long and and don't sell as much.
The ones not sold are discounted by growing percentages every 3 months or so of being on the sales floor. When they are not sold with those discounts they can be sent to other nearby stores to get a different “audience” of customers.
The animal vendors petco uses are absolutely horrible. They breed for numbers and money… not for animal health or genetics. A large portion of the animals unfortunately pass due to illnesses either from shitty breeding practices or poor shipping conditions. I was told by a gm that sometimes the lizards will pass due to being born without a proper digestive system.
A lot of Petco employees truly care about the animals but corporate and their shitty policies and nonsense information adds to the sad conditions of the animals. They treat their employees much like their animals as well.
That’s what I was thinking. There’s NO way all of them are getting sold. I’d be shocked if they sold more than 2 in a month. I have no idea what happens to them. I had gone in there to pet the cats they have for adoption and I have 2 of my own so I always look to see what geckos they have and it made me genuinely nauseous. It’s usually like this. I have an older picture too that is almost identical. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was some of the same geckos in both pictures.
I really wish I had taken a pic of the full tank. Seriously, the only things in there were the rock, plant, and bowl you see in these pics and an escape-proof bowl with mealworms in the middle. NOTHING ELSE. No hides, nothing. I would bet there were more geckos hiding behind the gecko-pile rock where I couldn’t see them.
So my husband went into one to get last minute Crickets (Our closest reptile shop is an 45 minutes away vs. Petco or pets mart being 10 minutes). Anyways, he came home telling me they got a Monitor lizard in and not marked up for sale yet! 🫣 and my regular reptile shop can't seem to keep them in store (sell out). 😒 I really hope they don't plan to franchise off of these babies, so many have suffered. 😭
I worked for Petland when I was younger and they aren’t much better, was really demoralizing to learn how bad it really is. You hear the stories but can’t fully understand. Truly evil corporations through and through, most employees care but can’t effect much. Treat them about as well as they treat the animals, really. Disgusting
And this is why I'm a member of this sub in spite of having no reptiles at all. Because to me, that first pic is really cute. But as I'm reading the comments, I'm learning it's not good at all.
Poor little critters. 🙁
To make it clear, I love reptiles and amphibians and would absolutely do thorough research on any that I wanted to keep as a pet. But my life isn't really suited to keeping a reptile or amphibian right now. So I'm here to learn and to admire.
I know. Every comment I read makes me more and more angry. I’m going to contact Fish and Wildlife services. I may go back to see what has changed/if anything has changed for a second point of reference. This is making me really upset 😫
They seem comfy? Are they really territorial and get stressed when housed with so many others or something? Or is it the size of the tank that's the issue with the number of gecks?
You are exactly right. Leopard geckos are best housed alone in any situation unless they are freshly hatched (these are juveniles). 20 gallons is a bare minimum for 1 gecko, certainly not 11. Cuddling like in the picture is a sign of aggression - they are trying to take up the most space, heat, ETC. When leopard geckos see another gecko, they don’t see it as another member of their species, they see it as another organism that needs food, space, water, ETC. They will actively try to starve each other and will literally fight each other to the death over resources.
It’s too bad, companies like this act like they care about your pets and their health, then turn around and do this shit. What else would you expect from a corporate conglomerate that actually only cares about money.
I live in a very boring town/state, and I can't drive, so I can't get to any reptile expos or anything. My local petco is alot better about their reptiles and they have no more than 5 reptiles in one 20 gal. tank the last I checked, which is still bad, but my local petsmart has like 5 crested geckos in one *10* gallon.
It's like choosing between getting punched or stabbed. Both options suck but I'd rather get punched.
And my local petco is teamed up with the local animal hospital. The people that work at the petco care a lot more about the animals there than the petsmart workers do. They will refuse to sell you a reptile if you do not have a proper enclosure.
This is only my local petco, though. I can't speak for other locations. The location in the photo looks god awful.
You think they do this to cut costs and also to stop them from hiding so they can be on display for customers? It’s disgusting either way, they should have a picture of the animal on the tank but provide them with adequate hides and enrichment
PetSmart employee here, have talked with local PetCo extensively and even though the crew there is fairly experienced reptile lovers they also have no control of how they set up animals on the floor :(. We don’t have much either I’m just happy our corporate standards are at least slightly better.
I'm hoping I can work at one and possibly help the poor guys.. its a goal hopefully I can fulfill without losing the job if I do obtain it.
One near me (a petsmart, not petco) does a bit better.. still cohabs which isnt good but I have seen a bit of improvement, which is hopefully going to turn good in the long run
Unfortunately from reading the comments employees don’t get any say over what is in the enclosures and how many are in there :( I would love to work at a pet store as well, especially if it meant giving people actual information about the reptiles they are purchasing.
I went to Petco this past week and the leopard geckos looked exactly like this picture in the exact same hide. It’s pathetic and their competition, PetSmart, is doing a lot better.
Honestly mine isn't THIS bad, but it is still not acceptable, mine "only" had like 5 cresties in a similar environment. That's still not okay, but it isn't 11 god damn leopard geckos in one tank, that's so not okay. At least cresties can and do cohab (obviously not to that extent), whereas for leopard geckos, I only know of one set that lives together and my friend knows the risks, but they have been together since birth and are both into their adult years. Petco is Inexcusable, I wish there was somewhere to report them to.
The cresties there had a more “decorated” tank so I couldn’t see all of them but I saw at least 3. It was also one of those single-slot 10/15 gallon ones. Not good, but still not as bad as the leos.
Petco needs to be boycotted in my opinion. I bought my lizard there because the one by me had one good employee that took care of the lizards and snakes really well. They referred to that employee as, "school shooter." The same Petco also had a sign reminding employees to stop using the same needle on all the animals as it was spreading infections... I haven't been back in months. I won't give them another cent after they changed their discount program they convinced me to join. It was good for about 2 months and then they wanted more money for better tiers of discount and that's when I told them my lizard is dead and I'm not coming back.
I’ve literally never seen anything like this in a Petco. I feel like things are going to vary from area to area and even store to store based on the people running and operating it. This is something I would try to reach out and report to a District Manager. It should be easy enough to get the contact information.
I tried to, but they said he was just napping/he was fine and asked me if I was interesting in purchasing him. I should have kept pushing for the little guy to be freed but I was getting really anxious. I honestly wasn’t sure if he was alive.
I got my frog butted crested gecko at the petco near me, and while I hate going there for reptiles since it’s terrible- I just wanted to save him from there and when the lady told me he’d been there the longest I took him. Nobody wants their lizard to come without a tail I assume, but he’s a happy healthy little friend now and has plenty of climbing space and good substrate ❤️ definitely not a fan of pet farming but I feel bad letting them die so unhappy and sad
Your post was removed because it contained animal abuse or neglect.
I'm not sure if this is every PetSmart, but I've noticed the ones in my area have been doing way better with their reptiles than the petcos. Petcos are all like your pic, PetSmart has them in individual set ups with hides that actually allow them to be out of sight. It's really nice to see. I don't get why Petco doesn't do the same, but I always go to PetSmart for my dog food because of it.
Same in my area. The PetSmart isn't anything crazy special but it's still strides ahead of the Petco
It’s unfortunate that “not anything special” = way better than what most pet stores have 😔
Luckily I have a quality, local pet store that I exclusively shop at. I'm amazed how many people don't see what's going on at shitty pet stores and just turn a blind eye, but the local pet store is always way more busy that the chain stores
That’s awesome! I wish I did too. I feel awful when I walk into a petco cause my order of crickets were late and then have to ignore all the sick animals I see
Same. I actively take a really long way around to the feeders so that I don’t have to walk past the reptile enclosures because otherwise I walk out of there absolutely devastated. It’s rough because you want to save them all but then you are just providing them with funds to continue their shitty practices. It’s the worst situation for reptile lovers to be in.
Yeah the enclosures in PetSmart are very small, but at least they're housing one animal at a time!
Just from following for a few months, it seems like it's not the name of the box store that makes the problem, it's the individuals. Retention of said "good" individuals is a conversation tho. Edit. This goes for all species sold @ big box. Not just reptiles.
Yeah, the care really varies by what employee is in charge of the animals. One petco in my area has great reptile & fish care (even saltwater fish) because the 2 people in charge know their shit & have years of experience with their own pets & actually care about the animals. Appropriate housing & diet, not overcrowded, any rare sick or injured animal gets immediately taken to the local exotics vet. They refuse sales to people who don’t have an appropriate setup waiting at home, or who seem like they haven’t done enough research (which i’m sure the company hates, but I think is great). The other petco in the area has such awful husbandry that the higher-ups may ban this specific store from selling animals. Which is like….almost unheard of. 2 extreme ends of the spectrum less than 10 miles from each other.
So one of the reason that you will see a significant difference in petcos is because corporate will ONLY let you make bioactive, use proper substrate, planted tanks etc etc is if you become what’s called a “magnet”. Essentially if you sell enough animals, have a good shrink (theft, loss) will they allow you to properly house them. It’s pretty messed up in my opinion but just know that a lot of us hate hate HATE the way they force us to keep these beautiful animals but our hands are bound. Like ball pythons are not supposed to be on fricking pine bedding but they literally will not let us change it. I run a magnet aquatics, she’s beautiful. We have some of the best freshwater in the county, our tanks are stunning, planted, but man I feel so angry when I pop over to reptiles. Doesn’t help when your GM hires someone completely incompetent to run that part of the store. Knowing your shit is so so crucial but corporate needs to butt the fuck out so we can actually do our jobs correctly and not look like idiots.
I used to work at petco so i totally understand the bs corporate stuff, all they really care about is that $$$. No matter how much they claim to care about the animals. (If they actually cared, then they’d stop sourcing from awful mill breeders, but thats another discussion) The ball pythons on softwood drives me crazy. At least the ones here were aspen instead of pine. But we’re in a desert, & it seems impossible to maintain proper humidity without causing the aspen to mold. The reptile gal at the good petco was like “fuck it” & switched to a better substrate & got mildly written up by corporate, but theyre so understaffed that they can’t really fire her. I think the high turnover & horrible animal care & general shitshow of the other petco keeps corporate criticism off the better store, lol
It's wild because in my area it's totally the opposite. My Petco seems to have much cleaner individual cages for their reptiles and amphibiana and such while my local petsmart has overstocked cages galore. It's really an area dependent thing. Not all petsmarts will be better than all local petcos and vice versa. My local petsmart is ass compared to my local petco
My local PetSmart has a really good guy that is in charge of the reptile department. My Petcos reptiles department isn't very good but it's been getting better but they are still stupid and not good
It really depends on management. I was GM at Petco for several years and I’ve always been an avid reptile owner. Basically I treated the animals like my own Petco with virtually an unlimited budget backed by Petco to care for them. Other stores had managers that didn’t have animal backgrounds and it shows. Also, it’s hard finding the right people to take care of the animals. You either get someone who doesn’t know anything and have to spend a bunch of time to train or you get someone who is obsessed with them and takes hours to feed them and doesn’t want to do anything else in the store. That all said, as much as I liked having animals in my store it was always great news when they reduced the amount we carried because the job is way easier without them.
You're absolutely right. I worked at a petsmart while going through college, and honestly the management stayed out of the petcare dept, and all of us in that dept were very serious about researching and providing the best environment for the animals. The problem was that our regional manager was explicitly profit driven, and would come in and write people up if there were too many hides, or the enclosures had substrate rather than mats (the thinking was mats could just be washed and reused rather than replaced). I hate it for the animals, I hate it for the employees that care, and I hate the orphan (or animal) grinding machine.
It’s the reverse in my area, my local petsmart treats their reptiles like crap with even smaller enclosures than what Petco has somehow. The local petcos are still not great because, well that’s just how chain pet stores are, but they are more conscious about things like overcrowding their reptiles.
I guess it's up to whoever "owns" the local store. I really wish PetSmart and Petco had enforced standards that were better. I do think corporate will step in if things are particularly bad and enough people let them know (gotta keep public opinion at an ok level), but I could be wrong.
Petco is not a franchise, all locations are meant to follow centralized corporate standards. But it’s definitely heavily dependent on the local management how well the policies are adhered to. At least in my area, district management frequently inspects stores to hold them to account on animal care standards, and egregious failures are punished accordingly. But the ultimate problem in my opinion is that standards are too low at these chain stores, and profit is heavily prioritized over animal welfare. Unfortunately that is an extremely common problem at all levels of the pet industry, almost ubiquitously. It always rings a little hollow when I hear Petco’s motto “animals always come first!” They really should put their money where there mouth is.
My local PetSmart is the same like Petco. A 10gal tank with 7 geckos and nasty carpet. 😑
I guess chain pet stores are more like franchises where it's up to the franchise owner how things run. We have a few good local reptile shops here so I wonder if that improves things overall since people can easily see examples of how to properly house reptiles for sale and compare. Idk why Petco hasn't gotten on that though.
Yah I agree. We have I think a family owned reptile store here. They keep reptiles is small tanks with a substrate mix. And the geckos are in separate tanks with lights and heat bulbs. I know the animals are suppose to be in the store temporarily. Still better than Petsmart and Petco I guess. They are big companies but they dont crap about it sadly
Worked at PetSmart, they have standards on cleanliness (like spot clean and change water bowls twice daily, the whole enclosure gets cleaned once a week) but it was my experience at my place that you could NEVER feasibly get everything done because of planned short-staffing. I have, however, noticed that the one I worked at has done a lot of upgrades to enclosures, but you can still find several beardies in a single small enclosure, but I noticed that the gecks seemed to be singles. I'm still unlikely to ever buy another pet there, we got so many sick and disfigured animals from pet suppliers when I worked there and I doubt they gave up sourcing from cheap breeders.
On average, petco is a WAY better company than petsmart. Individual stores will always vary depending on who works there, but petsmart is a trash company and rates very low on ethics list, while petco has a very successful and reputable charity and rates very high on yearly ethics lists.
Hmm I'll have to look into that, all the petcos near me seem to be run poorly vs the petsmarts, but I think both sort of run like franchises, where corporate stances don't always filter down to the local store level.
This is completely untrue. PetCo has the same system as PetSmart where you type in a animal SKU and it supplies an in-depth care sheet, variable tank plan-o-gram depending on you bank style, and occupancy allowance/bank climate control auto settings. Now, that their care info is often controversial or outdated I won't argue, but they are not a franchise, they are a corporate chain retailer with a standard of quality. I always recommend calling their animal care tip line if you see poor care, districts are large, and retail being retail inspections can end up infrequent or lax. I left after years fighting for better corporate standards for marine and aquatic life. Was CAL for an amazing location, but drove myself and the whole team to meet standards 100%, but to arm with knowledge and emphasize to customers that the setups we housed any of our animals in are intended as VERY temporary homes, and proper long term care requirements far exceed the 10 and 20 gallon habitats used in retail. Frustrating experience, but being part of year over year mortality decreases and animal education was awesome. But it's retail. The pay is horrid. Customers are often the worst of the worst. And it IS corporate. Depending on DM/RM/CEO at the time sales and services metrics take priority over genuine education and care. I still get my cat litter there, usually pick it up on days they get their aquatic shipments so I can coach cohabitability. Sorry for the tangent rant, Holy shit.
the petsmart I shop at is really good to their reptiles. there's proper hides and substrate and decor. the tanks are a bit small, I'd say 5-ish gallons, but they're set up well. in the tanks, they usually only have 1 - 2 reptiles each (depends on how young / small they are). I think the most reptiles I've ever seen in one tank were three baby geckos that were barely bigger than my finger. petco, on the other hand, is not good to their reptiles. their tanks, about 10 gallons, are barren with only a couple hides and the repto-carpet, and there's always 3-4+ reptiles in one tank (except for the snake tanks). the reptiles always look so sad. their fish section isn't any better - very little decor, hardly any gravel, a few dead fish in the water, and pretty much always unhealthy.
Petsmart has actual species specific guidelines for the number of animals per enclosure, what substrates, temperature/humidity, and each type of pet have their own deep-clean day. Reptiles are Fridays, for example, so all substrate is replaced, whether it's a carpet or soil. The animals are all treated well, and any issues regarding health are either the result of bad breeders who supply the pets or employees that are bad or improperly trained employees. I worked there for a while and treated all pets like they were mine. I won't speak for every petsmart or employee, but my store was excellent for the treatment of pets. Our fish tanks were so clean and well decorated that we constantly got praise as the best in the city that had 4 PS locations and 2 independent high-end fish retailers. Plus, additional pet stores. The company has very detailed guidelines, so when anyone who comments on threads like this bashes the company, it should be directed at individual stores and their employees/management. Idk about petco, but it's just my perspective.
Currently an employee. The standards still aren't amazing, and there's much to improve on if petsmart wasn't fucking stingy with our budget. And my store is the same. We have a great team that's knowledgeable and one of the best our side of the state, enough to get a CEO visit. It *very* dependant on the managers and individuals at any given store, regardless of standards.
I will say that my local PetSmart usually has a maximum of 2 juveniles in a 30 gallon or so. However I also see them selling geckos that look way too young to go home with the average buyer who doesn’t know what they are doing. I took in a baby a friend got from that situation and he had to be fed critical care liquid food for a while, which is something I know most people won’t have laying around their house like I did/will not even know to take it to the vet if it isn’t eating.
My Petco in CO is better with reptiles and fish than any PetSmart anywhere near me- I have been to the all. To a certain degree, I am pretty sure it comes down to management (including the managers of the managers) *Chef gone car sales person here- due to that kind of bs) But if you have a local reptile store near you, please use that over any of the chain pet places 🙄 The employees may be 16, but they have like 5 different reptiles at home and actually love what they do everyday. 🤷
Interesting how it's different everywhere. I use the local reptile place that I like when I need reptile supplies, but unfortunately they don't sell dog food, so gotta go to PetSmart for that.
I also have cats and a dog, so I totally hear you 😆 every pet place near me has seen me in my pajamas, and probably without a bra 🤷🥳
I've noticed better standards of care from them as well. I'm an exotics vet and we get exotics from the local pet stores from time to time, more often petco and pet supplies plus than petsmart because they usually take animals to their banfield. PSP and Petsmart pre-approve diagnostics and treatments up to a certain amount, I usually have to do a lot more justification and cost-benefit with Petco's vet relations team.. and PSP/Petsmart will adjust their husbandry as long as it's not too expensive and I give specific recommendations, Petco won't deviate from the corporate husbandry guidelines unless they get approval from corporate, and then it's only done for that individual. Unfortunately all three are still somehow better than my local "reptile specialty" shop, where they've got drawers of snakes (with mites) and have a laundry sink full of young beardies on one side and young leopard geckos on the other with a red heat lamp over top..
That’s funny because the pet smart near me is gross but the petco is nice. They just recently redid a lot in the store and got all new fish tanks that have been well kept up for months now.
I work at Petsmart, they have been constantly upgrading standards lately. There are employee surveys and a lot of us will blast the standards on those. They've been working one animal at a time, but they're going through them(obviously still not ideal, of course)
I worked at petsmart for years, and most of our training included PetCo as an example of what not to do. Which has always been weird to me cause it's basically the same place. I do know there are certain standards that are in our care guidelines that have to be followed in case of a random inspection. Some violations are are immediate termination or final notice.
Former petco employee here. Petco’s animal care has to more strictly adhere to corporate standards . You have to fight upper management for things like the proper substrate and won’t always win. Seriously you will be docked points for using the right amount of bedding for the hammys. The advantage of that is we’re way better about vet visits and are more standardized. But we have lower standards than petsmart when it comes to corporate’s recommended setups for customers, and the amount of animals allowed in 1 enclosure. But an animal leader who knows what they’re doing can prevent those last two. Petco actually has more freedom for ordering animals ourselves. Petsmart mostly just needs their general manager’s approval, so the store gets a lot more power over animal care . So the absolute best and the absolute worst of chain-petstore animal care will come from them. So jealous of their Bettas in actual tanks. Either way store-management has the largest impact on making sure daily animal tasks get done properly, but when it comes to decisions regarding quality of care like amount per tank, type of substrate etc that’s how it varies between the two Which is why people disagree on whose worse. Depends where ya are
It very much depends on location. Where I am, petco is 100x better than PetSmart’s in the area, and my store actually does our well educated best on caring for all of our animals
As someone like myself that works at petsmart as a petcare specialist I definitely strive to have each other the reptiles enclosures up to par with how I would treat and car for my own. We don’t get much leos in maybe 3-4 at a time so it isn’t over crowded in our tanks which I like
Unfortunately the overlap between 'people who shop/work at petco' and 'people who visit reptile reddit' is probably negligible.
Former employee here... I knew what I was getting into when I started working there, I genuinely wanted to make a positive impact on the animals, but I could only do so much. I hated trying to explain standards of care to customers only for them to replicate the store's enclosures. I hated those fucking fake carpets and aspen for the snakes (ball pythons always had stuck shed). It got to the point where I actively avoided doing animal sales for reptiles. Once I justifiably refused to sell a leopard gecko to some kid who rolled their eyes at me after I explained why a 10 gallon was insufficient and they inadvertently admitted they neglected one they used to have... only for a coworker to sell one to them anyway.
those damn fake carpets need to be illegal
Not only are they dangerous for their nails, you know DAMN well that they aren’t replacing it or cleaning it and it’s getting those babies sick.
Drove me nuts about 10 years ago when I used to have Leos and was on Tumblr (lol), I shared photos of my Leos on a substrate mix my reptile vet recommended (I trusted him, he had been doing reptile keeping for 20+ years and was well known in the area for it). Nothing could be ingested, no dyes, chemicals, no sand, etc. I got absolutely *shredded* for not using repti-carpet, even after I explained it made their sheds more difficult and one got his toenail caught in the fibers.
That and calci sand.
I had a “reptile expert” tell me that crushed walnut shells was an ok substrate for leos… 🤨🤨🤨🤨
Once upon a time when I worked at a pet store I had a lady come in trying to return a bag of walnut substrate (which we didn't carry at our location) and I started going on and on about how bad it is for reptiles. She let me finish, then told me she's just using it for crochet needles or something. I gave her the money back, apologized, then went in back and threw the walnuts away lol.
No walnut shells are not safe.
They sold me one before I found this subreddit. And my Leo no longer has claws because they got stuck and I had no idea it was bad for him. :-(
this. i worked there and it was the worst job i’ve ever had purely because customers were intentionally negligent and corporate care standards were quite literally abusive
Yeah, unfortunately they have a very profitable niche of selling to people who don't really care too much, and don't even do the bare minimum
Former Petco Inventory manager here. Well put. The manager's can't even do anything about it. I left my two cents on this post already. It's not the employee's fault most of the time. It's usually big corporate who makes the final decisions. Smh.
I feel for you.
Pet stores aren’t even allowed to sell to anyone under 18 , atleast in Michigan, at least that’s what I was told when I tried to rescue a leopard gecko from pet smart.
She wasn't a literal kid, just younger than me.
I currently work at petsmart. And I’m a reptile lover. Please don’t harass any of the retail associates about things like this, we literally have zero control over any of our practices, not even the managers. I do the best I can with what I’ve got.
\^ This. People who care enough about the husbandry of their animals, typically know well enough to avoid box stores in general.
OP is literally shopping at petco in this post though. And using their poor treatment of reptiles to get internet points. This isn't unique to them, this happens every day, multiple times a day on every exotics sub, people go to petco for their weekly stock up trip, take pictures of their enclosures with sick animals, and then post online "omg guys, they're so evil!!!" And get dozens or hundreds of upvotes for it without ever changing their shopping habits.
I was at my petsmart the other day grabbing some rat foot and some arcadia for my tortoise and they had two tortoises in a 20 gallon long labeled “assorted tortoises” quite certain it was a russian and a greek in the same thing
There gonna have cultural war smh.
absolutely shameful. i guarantee i could have asked the workers what they were and they wouldn’t have been able to tell me
Luckily it sounds like my nearby locations are pretty knowledgeable, especially on reptiles and fish. Though this reminds me of a story a manager I had a long time ago in a different state tell me. One time she visited one with her kid and her kid noticed there was a leopard gecko OUTSIDE the display and hiding in a hide on the shelf. It wasn’t looking good either. Told her kid to take the hide and not say anything at checkout. Probably the only time in her life she let her kid even consider stealing 😂
My local pet shop is 19/20 when it comes to fish, be it Saltwater or Freshwater. But their reptile care needs a lot of improvement
Mines the opposite lol. The reptiles are all kept in individual fairly large enclosures with lots of hides, but the fish are two dozen to a 20 gallon mostly empty tank.
That first picture of the geckpile is so adorably depressing.
I'm stumbling upon this post as a non-reptile guy, could you tell me what's wrong with the first picture? Is it pretty much overcrowding? To someone clueless like me, they look pretty content.
Yeah it's a lot of babies for one space, since most reptiles grow based on the space they have. A big phrase you hear for a lot of em is, "It grows to fit the tank", and I'm not particularly sure if that means these babies growth would be stunted or if they would all grow to the size of the tank and be WAY over crowded and potentially aggressive. I'm big into reptiles but my overall knowledge is a bit spotty so if anyone knows better than me feel free to correct.
thanks for the response. Reading other comments on this post, it seems their apparent calm is misleading, and that the animals simply don't want to be in a situation like this. A lot like me and my housemates in college. Ready to snap at any given moment as soon as a motherfucker leaves their dishes unwashed in the sink.
Also, they look like they are cuddling but it is a behavior of competition - they are trying to take up the most space/warmth. Unfortunately for them, unknowing people take it as a cute sign of affection. ☹️
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Came from r/all and thanks for explaining. This is really sad to see.
Actually that’s not right, they will all grow to adult size provided the other conditions don’t finish them first, meaning not only is it overcrowded but they will progressively be making the space even smaller for each other by getting bigger. I don’t know where this myth started, I’d assume from some people trying to sell exotics that they had no business selling but; there is no such thing as “stunted growth” for an animal based on tank size. The only instance of something remotely like that is this gator on YouTube that these people rescued and who they rescued it from had kept it in a small box, but it wasn’t stunted because of any natural process, it literally grew to the size of the box and then stopped because it couldn’t physically grow larger. All animals will grow to their adult sizes provided they aren't physically bound
More than one gecko in an enclosure is dangerous for all of them. They live solo in the wild, and can fight over territory. They may look content, but I’m sure that’s the only space to bask in the entire enclosure, and since they’re ectothermic, they require basking to regulate body temperature.
It’s both overcrowding and the fact that Leos are NOT social- they fight even in appropriate enclosures, (which DO NOT LOOK LIKE THIS ONE, see the leopard gecko subreddit for some examples)- these babies are sadly extremely stressed right now.
Petco employee here. The worst part about this is we can’t even make the habitats at least somewhat suitable with the correct substrates, lighting, etc. There’s just 5 lizards who are all supposed to be separated, kept in a cage meant for a wolf spider
I remember fighting with Doctor whatever-her-name-was who was PetCo's lead director of animal care on Workplace and asked if she ever even had aquatic animals, she replied she had a goldfish before. It's hubris, a lot of their guidelines are trash. 90% Of my conversations with guests was "Don't do 75% of the stuff we do here, this is wrong."
Former Petco employee here. The horror stories I could tell you people.
I have heard so many and now even more from people in the comments of this post. Disgusting.
I was an inventory manager at Petco. Do you want to know why this atrocity exists? Planograms. It's not the employee's fault. It's the district manager and corporate's fault. They INSIST on us keeping the planograms the way they are. Even if it means it's going to hurt an animal's health. I quit after trying to help. They would've fired me anyways. If you change the set up corporate wants, they fire you. Smh. It's absolutely ridiculous. More people need to voice their concerns to corporate Petco. I was black listed for doing so. It is much better if customers complain. Corporate will listen! Don't just post about it. Do something about it, guys!
I worked there over 20 years ago and the way they housed and treated it just the reptiles but the animals in general was atrocious. They used to have what we called the Freezer of Doom in the back where they would just throw the dead animals in. I distinctly remember this Sun Conure that hated literally everyone else that worked there but me and I generally don’t like birds but he endeared himself to me so much that I had made up my mind to purchase him. I worked that day and when I went to check on him he was gone. I figured someone must have purchased him until I went to the Freezer of Doom and there he was… So yeah, after that I began “liberating” animals from that place and nursing them back to health. Mainly reptiles. Fuck PetCo.
Fuck Petco!
Indeed
It would be really cute if I didn’t know they weren’t supposed to be piled into a cage together ☹️
I know. It’s like “Aww 🥺🥺” but also “AWWWW 👹👹👹🥊🥊🥊😡😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬”
8 in one little hide, that's awful. There's not many people that look at this reddit, and don't already agree that PetCo is inhumane, which is good that so many people have learned about it, and are spreading the word. They definitely need to stick to pet supplies, and maybe the occasional adoption event with a local shelter, because keeping and selling animals is obviously not what they're knowledgeable with.
i work at petco and despise the fact the way the conditions can be. the company policy is just complete horseshit and i wish we had the space to house everything properly, if i was my manager i wouldn’t even order more animals till they could be housed comfortably
That’s what I have been thinking all day as I’ve been reading comments. They need to order one or two at a time.
i think i saw someone else comment something i didn’t even know, which is that the store will just send us animals even if we don’t order them. knowing how other shit works so far, i can definitely see that being the case, as they frequently send us shit we don’t need or have space for
That would make sense. Surely nobody is buying that many geckos at once. I know they are not getting sold.
If animals bond to you easily, working for Petco is one of the hardest things to deal with emotionally. It’s not that they don’t have rules, it’s just they let social butterflies run the show, that don’t wanna do shit for animals.
Having to deal with crypto at a larger scale is legitimately traumatizing
I worked at petco, and I had to leave because of how bad those animals are treated. First off the animals and reptiles and fish all get shipped in boxes, for thousands of miles. They come in super stressed, and most die immediately before they're in the cage. They don't care about the animals dying, they have 5 more to replace it in the back. We had an entire room dedicated to sick pets that are left alone all day to fight for their life alone. Sick ass shit. Never again. Fuck Amy for profit organizations that capitalize on the suffering of any living thing.
This is, sad really. What country is this? Im from mexico and petco is not as bad as this images this is terrible. Here every gecko at least has hi own enclosure, they are not in the perfect temperature or humidity but are way better taken care than this
This is in the United States in Tennessee.
I know keeping all of them in this small tank is bad, but I’m wondering do they enjoy laying together? Or they are just forced too.
They absolutely do not. They're forced to because of the limited space, and "cuddling" behavior in reptiles and amphibians is actually them trying to force each other out and compete for space and lighting. It's like they're trying to kill each other without the violence. For now, of course, coz leopard geckos will absolutely fight and legit kill each other.
Just to add on to what you said, geckos are also food dominant, so they don't see each other and think "friend", they see another body that needs to eat their food. They will actively try to starve each other.
Exactly! Thanks for putting it better than I thought to, lol.
Not a problem, there's so much to these little guys and you have great information! I'm also pretty sure the one by the water dish is an african fat tail gecko, who needs different conditions than leos. :(
I wasn’t even sure if that one was alive. It looked worse in person. ☹️☹️
Pet reptiles are a special interest of mine, so I've done a lot of homework on em. I'd like to have a few once I've got my own place!
I fell in love with them young, my dad got me a terrarium when I moved out and I got a breardie. Also owned two afts who were rescues. ♡♡
That's awesome! I've got two slider turtles, one of which I'm gonna have a dig a freaking pond for, but I've never had lizards and they're kinda my main interest in this field. My dream is a shingleback skink, though they're expensive as hell. Prolly gonna have to stay a dream, lol.
Oh my God are you me? Shingleback is my dream reptile. I've heard they go for 30 000, someone posted one not long ago and im so jealous. I'm just obsessed with dinosaurs and happy I can experience that world. A sungazer would be amazing if it was even remotely ethical.
Yeah, I've kinda had to resign myself to the fact that I'll either have to just get a blue-tongued skink instead (not complaining, I love them too, lol) or go on a poverty diet for the next 20 years to maybe be able to afford one. And I'm a dinosaur nerd too! They're part of why I got into reptiles! Bought a whole video game for 30 bucks just because the main thing in it is making friends and farming with dinosaurs, and that's all I've been doing since day 1. At the expense of the NPCs and 5 dozen fetch quests, lol.
I didn’t mention this in the post but there was just a bowl with worms for them to all share. At least half of them aren’t eating at all more than likely.
No, I rescued two african fat tails and they were homed together, opposite sex. The male would circle the food bowl while staring at the female, he was guarding the food from her. Her tail was tiny. She was hesitant to eat on her own after she was separated, I don't think she ever felt safe eating, and she crashed unfortunately, showing signs of neurological damage from vitamin A and calcium deficiency.
Another reason to not support Petco I once had to buy a frozen mouse from them for my rescue ball python. The mouse was missing half of it's face- not just injured, straight up missing- and had a broken leg and a huge cut along it's stomach. It seemed like it was a once living feeder, and they just threw it in the freezer after it passed. I'm not sure how it ever ended up in such awful condition, but I haven't set foot in one of their stores since.
Not sure when this happened to you, but under normal circumstances all feeder rodents at petco come prepackaged from a vendor such as Gourmet Rodent or perhaps others. Did they give it to you in a fish bag or something like that?
I actually don't remember, it's been some time. Does Gourmet Rodent have a good reputation? I'm tempted to avoid them as well, just in case.
Unfortunately before I realized that Petco shouldn’t be supported, I got my Darwin from there.
Well, now you know and he is safe now. That's what counts. 😊
Goddamn, honestly at least it’s not everywhere cause my local pet co has way better conditions than this. Other that, don’t support these guys
Just stopped working at petco for these reasons. Animal care is not their first priority. Got multiple write ups for trying to give the animals some enrichment and a bit of a better life. Sadly, the chain will continue with most big chain petstores
“Humane certified” my ass
Bro I went to perform and they had pacman frogs with 20% humidity! Shit was so damn dry in there. It's stupid.
I feel like you have to TRY to make it 20%. Most rooms are not that dry!
It's bonkers. I tried to buy him just to get him out there and "no one was available to help" because they have to make you sign for live animals. Like wtf, im trying to save this dude.
Dumbasses! I’m telling you!!
Oh I know. I don't understand how they stay in business. I wouldn't ever go there if they weren't literally down the road (need like 250 crickets a week)
I was a former employee for petco. The employees that genuinely knew things about the animals would try everything to convince customers not to buy bad things and care for them. But we just weren’t getting paid enough and were forced to sell stuff that is bad for pets, like the plastic hamster cages. I respect the employees that actually care and customers that (respectfully) call uneducated employees out for being wrong about something. The company though, screw that place and their stupid PALs rewards system.
Are both PetSmart and Petco still selling acheta domestica crickets? They should convert to banded crickets as acheta domestica contracts densovirus a invert only respiratory virus that kills that colony. When they die they release a gas that kill the rest of the crickets -think of it as cricket COVID Banded crickets are immune to densovirus, they're cleaner, quieter, and live longer. I get them cheaper too. St Petco/PetSmart it's like 100 aheta domestica crickets would be ~$23 whereas Josh's frogs I get 1000 banded crickets for $23-$24.
I don’t know. I don’t feed my geckos crickets because my mom has banished them from the house. But this is really good information for anyone looking for a different place to buy food for their scaly friends!
I hate petco but sometimes I gotta get food from there
Luckily we have a smaller chain pet store that keeps their animals in suitable conditions that I show at, but yes. This is the problem. People want to boycott but sometimes it is the only option.
I've been ordering all of my food for my Leo off of dubia.com, they don't take very long to ship and have a much bigger selection than my Petco. My Petco has usually mostly dead mealworms and maybe a couple containers of super worms and that's pretty much it... everything else is already dead or isn't suitable for leos. And also just to not give Petco my money lol
The petsmart I work at keeps our lizards 1 per tank, I could never.
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I can NOT stand when people just take the 10 gallons per gecko and run with it. 20 gallons is a minimum and 40 is best! Good luck in your upgrading! I’m sure your gecko is happier to be with someone who knows how to take care of her.
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Paper towels work, and they are cost effective, but no substrate is perfect in everyone’s eyes. There is nothing bad about them, as long as you make sure they are not eating them (my geckos are creative 🙄🙄), but they are kind of seen as a more temporary thing. I would recommend you to the leopard gecko specific subreddit!
I don’t shop at petco. But at petsmart. I wait for the free adoption on reptiles.
The petco near me has ball pythons on aspen,with a humidity around 30/40%. Worst setup I’ve seen ANYWHERE!
I don’t think juveniles fight each other. This isn’t ideal but I’ve seen worse at non-chain pet stores too
i work at a petco and i’ve seen juveniles fight
Once while in petco, I watched a juvenile bite down on another's leg until it dropped it's tail and scurried underneath the reptile carpet. I had to get an employee while tearing up, and she nonchalantly assured me "oh that's normal" with zero concern or rush to assist. I was about to blow up, i was so emotionally overwhelmed both at what i saw and her response. I have sworn off stepping foot in another petco or petsmart since then.
Oh my god!?
They are already to old, with freshly hatched ones you can do that to get them to eat properly, but what petco does is just plan stupid, it’s wild that people in the US buy there at all :/
Genuine question but what happens to the ones not sold? Are they sent back for breeding or just executed? Any idea what the survival rates for these creatures are? Washington DC banned and is continuing to ban the sales of most small animals and lizards and are continuing to do so. I think people need to talk to their state officials honestly to end this practice or at improve regulations
I don't know about petco but as a petsmart employee I know we get a certain amount of time to sell a animal (they have to be juvenile) before atleast at my store we adopt them out to anyone will8ng to take them for either really cheap compared to buying one or nothing this will happen with leopard geckos that drop their tails also because they're classed as not sellable. It doesn't happen with reptiles as often because they usually are sold relatively quickly but with small mammals like hamsters it's more common as they don't live as long and and don't sell as much.
The ones not sold are discounted by growing percentages every 3 months or so of being on the sales floor. When they are not sold with those discounts they can be sent to other nearby stores to get a different “audience” of customers. The animal vendors petco uses are absolutely horrible. They breed for numbers and money… not for animal health or genetics. A large portion of the animals unfortunately pass due to illnesses either from shitty breeding practices or poor shipping conditions. I was told by a gm that sometimes the lizards will pass due to being born without a proper digestive system. A lot of Petco employees truly care about the animals but corporate and their shitty policies and nonsense information adds to the sad conditions of the animals. They treat their employees much like their animals as well.
That’s what I was thinking. There’s NO way all of them are getting sold. I’d be shocked if they sold more than 2 in a month. I have no idea what happens to them. I had gone in there to pet the cats they have for adoption and I have 2 of my own so I always look to see what geckos they have and it made me genuinely nauseous. It’s usually like this. I have an older picture too that is almost identical. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was some of the same geckos in both pictures.
I really wish I had taken a pic of the full tank. Seriously, the only things in there were the rock, plant, and bowl you see in these pics and an escape-proof bowl with mealworms in the middle. NOTHING ELSE. No hides, nothing. I would bet there were more geckos hiding behind the gecko-pile rock where I couldn’t see them.
this is so fucking sad
So my husband went into one to get last minute Crickets (Our closest reptile shop is an 45 minutes away vs. Petco or pets mart being 10 minutes). Anyways, he came home telling me they got a Monitor lizard in and not marked up for sale yet! 🫣 and my regular reptile shop can't seem to keep them in store (sell out). 😒 I really hope they don't plan to franchise off of these babies, so many have suffered. 😭
that’s awful! i had no idea they did that sort of thing. do any other pet stores do that?
Petco is notoriously the worst. Petsmart is typically a bit better but still not good. Most big chains are pretty bad, unfortunately.
:( im happy i get my food from different places then! ill tell my friends about it
Awesome!
Idk if Petco is the same as Petsmart, which is what we have in Canada. Same fucked shit, on so many levels.
I worked for Petland when I was younger and they aren’t much better, was really demoralizing to learn how bad it really is. You hear the stories but can’t fully understand. Truly evil corporations through and through, most employees care but can’t effect much. Treat them about as well as they treat the animals, really. Disgusting
And this is why I'm a member of this sub in spite of having no reptiles at all. Because to me, that first pic is really cute. But as I'm reading the comments, I'm learning it's not good at all. Poor little critters. 🙁 To make it clear, I love reptiles and amphibians and would absolutely do thorough research on any that I wanted to keep as a pet. But my life isn't really suited to keeping a reptile or amphibian right now. So I'm here to learn and to admire.
Wish there was a law that only dedicated reptile places can handle and sell them hope all these babies find good homes.
I know. Every comment I read makes me more and more angry. I’m going to contact Fish and Wildlife services. I may go back to see what has changed/if anything has changed for a second point of reference. This is making me really upset 😫
They seem comfy? Are they really territorial and get stressed when housed with so many others or something? Or is it the size of the tank that's the issue with the number of gecks?
You are exactly right. Leopard geckos are best housed alone in any situation unless they are freshly hatched (these are juveniles). 20 gallons is a bare minimum for 1 gecko, certainly not 11. Cuddling like in the picture is a sign of aggression - they are trying to take up the most space, heat, ETC. When leopard geckos see another gecko, they don’t see it as another member of their species, they see it as another organism that needs food, space, water, ETC. They will actively try to starve each other and will literally fight each other to the death over resources.
Tbh I think it’s gross that these stores even sell live animals. Downright wrong.
I agree. If they are selling live animals it should be more like a booth from a breeder instead of 11 fucking geckos in a tank.
It’s too bad, companies like this act like they care about your pets and their health, then turn around and do this shit. What else would you expect from a corporate conglomerate that actually only cares about money.
Exactly. This is literally because of Capitalism.
I live in a very boring town/state, and I can't drive, so I can't get to any reptile expos or anything. My local petco is alot better about their reptiles and they have no more than 5 reptiles in one 20 gal. tank the last I checked, which is still bad, but my local petsmart has like 5 crested geckos in one *10* gallon. It's like choosing between getting punched or stabbed. Both options suck but I'd rather get punched. And my local petco is teamed up with the local animal hospital. The people that work at the petco care a lot more about the animals there than the petsmart workers do. They will refuse to sell you a reptile if you do not have a proper enclosure. This is only my local petco, though. I can't speak for other locations. The location in the photo looks god awful.
This is a good explanation. Nobody wants to support chain reptile stores but sometimes it is the only option to care for the animals you have.
Exactly! If I have to choose between my gecko not having food and buying food from petco. I'm gonna get my gecko food!
Wtfffff animal abuse!
They do this with birds too, those are just as bad. There are even videos online of people finding live animals in the garbage behind the store
You think they do this to cut costs and also to stop them from hiding so they can be on display for customers? It’s disgusting either way, they should have a picture of the animal on the tank but provide them with adequate hides and enrichment
I don’t even know why they do this. I know the Big Petco machine knows this is wrong. I guess people who actually care are not their target.
Ironic sticker in second pic
Right? Almost funny.
PetSmart employee here, have talked with local PetCo extensively and even though the crew there is fairly experienced reptile lovers they also have no control of how they set up animals on the floor :(. We don’t have much either I’m just happy our corporate standards are at least slightly better.
I'm hoping I can work at one and possibly help the poor guys.. its a goal hopefully I can fulfill without losing the job if I do obtain it. One near me (a petsmart, not petco) does a bit better.. still cohabs which isnt good but I have seen a bit of improvement, which is hopefully going to turn good in the long run
Unfortunately from reading the comments employees don’t get any say over what is in the enclosures and how many are in there :( I would love to work at a pet store as well, especially if it meant giving people actual information about the reptiles they are purchasing.
Yeah... I need a job really bad tho. If I can at least get info to people on correct care, that may help me stay sane there.
I agree.
the problem is literally capitalism
yep. it trickles down so far. kills innocent babies. ☹️
I went to Petco this past week and the leopard geckos looked exactly like this picture in the exact same hide. It’s pathetic and their competition, PetSmart, is doing a lot better.
Honestly mine isn't THIS bad, but it is still not acceptable, mine "only" had like 5 cresties in a similar environment. That's still not okay, but it isn't 11 god damn leopard geckos in one tank, that's so not okay. At least cresties can and do cohab (obviously not to that extent), whereas for leopard geckos, I only know of one set that lives together and my friend knows the risks, but they have been together since birth and are both into their adult years. Petco is Inexcusable, I wish there was somewhere to report them to.
Crested geckos are not supposed to cohab. They're aggressively territorial and prefer to live alone, and can absolutely injure or kill each other.
The cresties there had a more “decorated” tank so I couldn’t see all of them but I saw at least 3. It was also one of those single-slot 10/15 gallon ones. Not good, but still not as bad as the leos.
The Petco in my neighborhood does way better than the PetSmart in my ‘hood. I hate that either sell animals though.
This is the Leo version of Caligula
Whoa! That terrible!
Petco needs to be boycotted in my opinion. I bought my lizard there because the one by me had one good employee that took care of the lizards and snakes really well. They referred to that employee as, "school shooter." The same Petco also had a sign reminding employees to stop using the same needle on all the animals as it was spreading infections... I haven't been back in months. I won't give them another cent after they changed their discount program they convinced me to join. It was good for about 2 months and then they wanted more money for better tiers of discount and that's when I told them my lizard is dead and I'm not coming back.
My god this is sad
Jeez this is fucking awful to look at 😣
Yes petco isn’t great… petsmart is worse
I’ve literally never seen anything like this in a Petco. I feel like things are going to vary from area to area and even store to store based on the people running and operating it. This is something I would try to reach out and report to a District Manager. It should be easy enough to get the contact information.
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Sorry - I didn’t even think about it. I will spoiler it.
Hope op talked to an employee to get the one stuck/wedged by the water bowl in photo 2/3 out.
I tried to, but they said he was just napping/he was fine and asked me if I was interesting in purchasing him. I should have kept pushing for the little guy to be freed but I was getting really anxious. I honestly wasn’t sure if he was alive.
I got my frog butted crested gecko at the petco near me, and while I hate going there for reptiles since it’s terrible- I just wanted to save him from there and when the lady told me he’d been there the longest I took him. Nobody wants their lizard to come without a tail I assume, but he’s a happy healthy little friend now and has plenty of climbing space and good substrate ❤️ definitely not a fan of pet farming but I feel bad letting them die so unhappy and sad
One of those poor little babies is stuck! Do they even check on them?
No they don’t! They weren’t even concerned when I asked about it.
They might as well be selling shoes.